Cans

Well, Mr. Cans is back, with a staggering followup to his magnum opus. An Odyssey to his Iliad, a Purgatorio to his Inferno, a “We Built This City on Rock and Roll” to his “White Rabbit.”

Radio

Radio

Who could forget the scene where the Windex bottle drags Hector’s body away from Carthage to found Rome? Or the part where Gilgamesh is frozen in ice up to his neck in the mop bucket for daring to seek the hand of Draupadi in marriage? Or the breathtaking suspense of Grace Slick drinking a can of Mountain Dew?

Incidentally, did you know that in the Mahabharata, the actual test for seekers of Draupadi’s hand seems to have involved shooting some sort of artificial fish while looking at its reflection in a pool of oil? Me neither. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother trying to be weird, when I can’t possibly match stuff like this.

The Dew can is in a completely different spot this time. Instead of being in front of the computer with a lighter in the background, it has the Windex and tv screen in the background. And there are a couple of tv remotes as well. Which section are they posting these in? Maybe it isn’t something they are trying to sell so much as a secret spy message relayed through random pictures and posted on CL? So maybe every object visible in each picture has a hidden meaning. Can someone with slightly more caffeine in their bloodstream help me out on deciphering this? We might manage it in time to save the world from these nefarious Sparkies.

I see the TV in my manger
And the touch of a world that is stranger.
I’m going loopy; this post will show it.
It makes me feel like a Dada poet.
I use the Windex to clean a trinket.
I buy the soda and never drink it.
I read the rantings of the Sparky.
Can’t understand, but it makes me snarky.

My life is not so empty anymore. I mean it. As Clint Eastwood keeps telling me on EVERY DVD I BUY!! “it has a different kind of sweep, a different kind of grandeur.”
I’m also firmly in the RSquared camp. These are messages. Not very intelligent messages, but messages all the same. Maybe it’s the Al Quaeda “Special” squad.

That was my thought too. If we can crack the message behind the seemingly random listings and guess what the next listing is, should we call the CIA? Will we be Mensa members (honorary or otherwise)? The search for meaning in these meaningless photos is frustrating!

[matt]You people are so intsensitive! Not everyone is ritch enoughe to affrod more than once word a week. Some peopel!

You should all be thanful at how frotunate you are to have this many words. Some of us have to cruise the oulet stores for factory second wordes. Which is why soem of us have troubel gettning ones that are spelld wright.[/matt]

Speaking of which, since I don’t drink it and hadn’t previously noticed, when did consumer attention spans get so short that Mountain Dew had to shorten its name on its own label to “Mtn Dew”? I think that if it takes you too long to read “mountain” maybe you don’t need to drink more Mtn Dew.

I drink the throw-back Mountain Dew with the real sugar. The can spells out the entire word, but it also has a picture of a mountain man with a moonshine jug, so…. Who knows what the hell Pepsi is doing these days.

Seriously… people get this up in arms if the packaging of a soda gets changed? They must have a mental break down when something serious happens, like when McDonald’s changed the oil it used its deep fryers.

This is probably going to make me somewhat unpopular here, but I liked the original better. Thematically, it just felt more consistent. With this new one they tried to cram in too many diverse ideas, none of which were thoroughly explored, leaving a more disjointed final product. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still good, it just doesn’t measure up to the first one. It’s probably my fault too — I just went in expecting too much.

Wait a minute…what we have developing here is the sequel to The Big Lebowski! “Sparky” Windex is mistaken for the heir to the Windex fortune. He seeks restitution for his stolen lighter from his CL buddies. Jon Turturro returns as Not.A.Jesus and the role of “Sparky” is generating a nation-wide talent search on Where’s Sparky – a new reality show hosted by The Hoff, Simon, and Christina Aguilera.

But the man does love his remote controls. Why 2? I do not see a cable box in the picture. For the love of universal remotes…wait…is that a turntable on top of the television? Which is a cool thing to have, but not if it is your sound system.

I can see what might be oriental writing in the very first picture, but I only recognize the letter shapes from playing Mahjong solitaire so I don’t know what it might say. I’m sure the glasses also have some relevance, but all that comes to mind is “seeing something clearly.” The Windex might be expanding on that theme, since Windex would make it easier to see through something.

Oh look! A musical homage to the can and the pane. I barely had to tweak the lyrics at all….

Can you hear the sound of the static noise?
Blasting out in stereo
Cater to the class and the paranoid
Music to my nervous system
Advertising love and religion
Murder [crows?] on the airwaves
Slogans [Do the Dew?] on the brink of corruption
Visions of blasphemy, war and peace
Screaming at you

I can’t see a thing in the video [get our your Windex]
I can’t hear a sound on the radio [take the ear pods out of your ears]
In stereo in the static age…